


To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time

by 3ves



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Collegestuck, DJ Dave Strider, Friends to Lovers, Gay denial, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, Trolls on Earth, but they string together nicely, every chapter can be a oneshot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-05-29 20:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3ves/pseuds/3ves
Summary: After Karkat's partner from his class finds out it's his wriggling day, he insists that Karkat come out to a gay club to see him play music for the first time in public.Despite his reluctance to leave his home, Karkat has a surprisingly good time. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of realizing that, of all the people in the club, he's definitely into the straight DJ who invited him out.As they grow closer as friends, Karkat is horrified to find his feelings just become worse (and messier.) Luckily, Dave isn't as not into Karkat as he seems.





	1. Got you feeling like you're falling in love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Magic by Mystery Skulls (Song I was listening to on repeat when writing this.)

_The spell you got on me, it's like magic_  
_Got me feeling like falling in love_  
_Got me feeling like I'll never give up on_  
_Got me feeling like I'll never give up on you_

“Karkat, trust me. You’ll have a good time.”

You pull at a loose string dangling from the hem of your sweater before turning your nose up to let your annoying partner from Intro to Shakespeare know exactly what is rattling around your thinkpan, “You can just stop wasting your nasty apple stained breath because the only universe where I would voluntarily abandon my studies of Shakespeare’s outdated slam poetry as well as the comfortable confines of my respiteblock tonight is if Human Shakespeare himself rose from the grave to lecture me on the intricacies of the Italian Sonnet.”

“Dude, you just told me it’s your birthday today. You think I’m gonna let a solid guy like you be shut away from the light of day in his home like JD Salinger all hiding behind his window shutters from the world after dropping the biggest thesis on angsty teens or some shit.”

He’s leaning slightly closer now over the side of his desk, his hand bent at an awkward angle to support himself. Any closer and he might just tumble out of the desk and smack his head on the side of your desk. You push his face away and feel a great sense of satisfaction as the asswipe briefly loses his balance and flails around. Before he can notice you watching him though, you turn your head to face the front of class where the teacher is touching on topics to cover for the final exam.

“Firstly,” you declare, “I’m a troll, so it’s not a birthday, it’s a _wriggling_ day. Keep your blatant ignorance of proper conduct around members of a different species in check, Strider. You’re not allowed to fuck up my culture just because I’m an immigrant to Earth.”

Dave tries to interject something probably simultaneously rude and stupid so you choose to save both of you time by ignoring him in favor of barreling right into your next point, “Secondly, staying in is a perfectly fine celebration of a wriggling day considering I’d rather not be reminded of the day I was thrust into this tragedy of a world. What better way to celebrate than blocking out all reminders of how pannumbingly frustrating life has become for me. It would be the greatest wriggling day gift if I were able to make it through a day without feeling an intense urge to swallow my ganderbulbs so that I will never again have to confront the horror that is the present day. Yet, here you are, reminding me of the horror of my wriggling day and forcing me to both swallow my eyeballs and crap them out into the world’s most backed up load gaper before plugging them back into my skull so that I have some excuse for all of the shit I see whenever I hear you speak.”

“Well that’s a gross image. Also, why do you insist on using the word ‘ganderbulbs’ if you obviously know the word, ‘eyeball.’” He never really adds anything to a conversation, does he?

“THIRDLY,” you continue. A girl in front of you with cropped, black hair and rectangular red glasses turns around and glares at you both. You glare right back before also glaring at Strider for good measure. He’s just shrugging at the girl, placing all of the blame for the level of noise you _both_ are causing solely on your entirely innocent shoulders. You lower your voice to a rough whisper even as you grow angrier.

“Thirdly-”

Strider lowers his voice too and leans in conspiratorially, “You sound so weird when you whisper. Is that an actual whisper or do trolls just never learn volume control. Who am I kidding, this isn’t a troll thing. This is 100% Karkat Vantas 8-carat gold.”

You roll your eyes before finishing your sentence, “You seem to be under the impression that, if I wanted to leave my hive to celebrate my wriggling day, I would be willing to waste my precious time with you.” You try to infuse as much menace and disgust as possible into your tone when you say, “you,” just to reinforce how low of an opinion you have of Dave.

Instead of reacting in a way that appears anywhere near sane, Dave perches his elbows on the edge of his table and drops his chin into his hands, tilting his head just enough for his eyes to be visible over the rim of his douchey sunglasses. He flutters his eyelashes at you with a completely straight face as he responds, “What, are you trying to play hard to get now?”

Before you can start to splutter and tell him off at the appropriate volume and with the appropriate amount of colorful language, he straightens and all playfulness is abruptly dropped from his demeanor.

“Doesn’t even matter, bro. Sorry, I’m straight as a ruler. All the boys come to the yard for my milkshakes but I gotta disappoint them with the cold, hard truth that the A-grade Strider is only up and available for the girls across the way. I’m sure you're heartbroken. Really, the whole world wept the day I was born for all the potential good loving that the boys of this world lost out on.”

The teacher is wrapping up the lesson now and you start to pack your shit into your bag. You don’t have time for Dave’s antics. As you zip up your bag all the way, a pale hand wraps around your wrist. You look up to find Dave’s face unexpectedly close to yours as he kneels down beside you and he turns bright red after he seemingly comes to the same conclusion as you.

After pulling away slightly, mumbling things along the lines of “Fuck,” “Sorry,” and “Shit, man,” Dave holds out a card with a club’s name and address on it.

“It’s my first time playing music for a crowd. They’ve got me working from 11 to 3 so if you stop by a lil earlier, we can talk a bit or something. I don’t know. Shoot the shit. Chill like two bros in a hot tub. Bring a friend or something. It’s a gay club so I’m sure you’ll catch plenty of attention. I’m a good wingman, I swear.”

You feel yourself go bright red, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He nods towards your bag and you look down to see the pansexual flag pin Kanaya gave you years ago.

“C’mon, man. I’m straight, not uneducated.” And then to himself, “Also Rose basically fucking drilled the shitty flag colors into my head after leaving the colors everywhere in a poor attempt at goading me into coming out of the closet. Well, no thanks. It’s good and comfy in this closet and I don’t ever gotta leave. Wait shit. I’m not like actually in the closet. The closet is nonexistent. There is no closet for me to come out of.”

You pocket the card into your back pocket, interrupting his train of thought, and mutter, “If you’re so straight, why’re you even working at a gay club, dumbass.”

He hears you because who doesn’t hear you when you speak and responds, “My sister hooked me up with the job. So you’ll go?”

Breathing out slowly, you avoid Dave’s gaze even though you can’t exactly see where he’s looking. You don’t want to go, but Kanaya has been telling you to get out of the house and meet new people for a while now. Ever since the whole shitstorm that went down with Terezi a year ago though, you’re not sure if you wanna touch the idea of dating with a ten foot pole. In fact, you’ve long since resigned yourself to not dating from now until forever.

“I’ll… think about it,” you finally respond and the way Dave so obviously and visibly perks up despite how much he so obviously tries not to makes you instantly regret it because now you have to go.

“I’ll see you then, Karkat,” Dave says with a wave as he shoulders his backpack and turns to leave. You wave back dumbly, wondering what you just signed yourself up for.

“Yeah… whatever, asshole,” you mumble halfheartedly, but he’s already gone.

 

Kanaya takes a lot less time and energy to convince than you expected. In fact, she was suspiciously easy to convince to come with you. She relented as soon as you mentioned that a certain Dave Strider, brother of a certain Rose Lalonde, invited you to stop by. Part of you is disgruntled by the fact that Kanaya is using your wiggling day to rub shoulders with the goth lesbian she’s had a crush on since she spotted her in Psych but the other part of you is thrilled that Kanaya is finally actively doing something about her painfully embarrassing crush.

When you both arrive at the club, the dancefloor is already surging with people as they dance to the pretty basic beats in the background. A certain goth lesbian magically appears by your sides within moments (Kanaya was definitely texting her on the way here) and Kanaya follows her to some corner without protest. You’d feel stung if it weren’t for the fact that you’d have probably done the exact same thing back when you were dating Terezi.

Instead of shouting to be heard over the music, you shoot Kanaya a text telling her you’re heading to the bar for drinks. She tells you to be safe and call her if you need anything and part of you feels unbearably pale for her for a moment and you have to take a breath before continuing on because she isn’t even your moirail right now.

You push your way through the crowd and make your way to the far right corner of the long countertop the bartender is serving at. The bar is on a raised platform along the far right wall of the club. From your position, you have a perfect view of the entirety of the people dancing below. Surrounding the dancefloor are a few booths and tables where you imagine Rose and Kanaya must be awkwardly flirting in. Diagonally opposite your position is the DJ booth raised slightly higher than the bar and reached by a single spiral staircase. Within the booth, you see a blueblood troll with large curling horns playing the track from a laptop.

Already bored, you pull your phone out to read a few more chapters of the book you had Sollux pirate for you last weekend. It seems like it’s gonna be a long wait before Kanaya is ready to go or Dave is up to play and part of you wonders why you even bothered coming when clubs aren’t even your scene. Dave had been so happy to have someone see his first performance though and, no matter how much you denied it, you were sort of kind of friends after spending so much time with each other outside of class on that stupid Shakespeare project. It was worth it though, considering the two of you got a rather decent grade for your efforts.

“Karkat!” A voice directly into your left ear startles you out of your reading and you jump nearly a foot into the air with an undignified shriek.

“Are you seriously studying Shakespeare while at the club?”

You calm down as soon as you realize it’s just Dave. He’s dressed differently now than before. Instead of his usual T-shirt and ripped jeans, he’s got a large amount of glow in the dark sticks hanging from his neck and wrists on top of a zip up hoodie artfully splattered with glow in the dark paint. His hair is standing up everywhere and he’s hooked his sunglasses in the front of his shirt so that his bright, red eyes pop out in the neon lighting of the club. He looks good. Good enough that, for a moment, you feel a little self conscious about your own attire, the usual comfortable sweater traded out for a slightly nicer sweater that Kanaya pulled out of the depths of your closet and forced you to wear.

“I’m surprised. You look good,” Dave says simply, as if directly echoing your own thoughts, and your insecurities disappear under a wave of indignant outrage.

“As if I don’t always, Strider,” you bite out.

He holds his hands up in mock surrender, “Hey man, I didn’t expect you to change is all.”

You cross your arms and look out towards the dancefloor, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge him.

“You haven’t ordered anything yet?” You don’t respond but that doesn’t keep Dave fucking presumptuous Strider from turning to the bar and mumbling something to the bartender.

“I don’t take drinks from strangers,” you tell him when the drinks arrive. He snorts a little, somehow continuing to maintain a straight face while expressing his condescending amusement.

“Good thing I’m not a stranger,” he says as he hands you the drink.

You eye the pink liquid sloshing against the sides of a thin glass warily. “What’s it called?”

“Cupid’s Cocktail. Most popular drink here, apparently. Cheers.” At the last word, he clinks his glass against yours and then proceeds to swallow the entire drink in three gulps. You hesitate a moment before following suit.

Thirty minutes and two drinks later and you’re definitely slightly buzzed as you and Dave hash stories back and forth about bad exes.

“Yeah… Gamzee and I were… a mess,” you slur. “It was just a completely one-sided moiraillegiance. I don’t even know what fucking convinced me to stick around for so long. The asshole never seemed to give a flying fuck about me and was always disappearing on the Faygo hype train to Miracleville up on Cloud 9 of being high.”

“Damn. Good fucking riddance,” Dave says decisively. He’s definitely got a higher tolerance for alcohol than you because he doesn’t seem even slightly perturbed by how much he has drunk tonight.

“I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that I was crushed when he broke up with me.”

Dave’s quiet for a long moment before he finally says, “Huh.”

“What?” You look over at him from the corner of your eye and watch his long artist’s fingers tap an elaborate beat on the countertop.

“Nothing, nothing.” He turns 180 degrees on the swivel chair he’s perched on and looks out over at the crowd. “Just never expected you to be the type to be dumped.”

You feel a sharp laugh shoot out of you, “Ha! You don’t know the first thing about me, Strider. I’m only ever dumped.”

“Aw, cute thing like you? What’s keeping you from going out there and finding someone for you to dump?”

You blow air out of your nose out of anger but refuse to entitle Dave’s teasing bullshit with any further response. Instead, you turn your head slightly and say, “My breakup with Terezi last year kind of fucked me up.”

“No shit, don’t tell me you went out with TZ too.”

“I swear to Gog, your thinkpan is as sharp as the eraser end of the pencil I want to shove into your ears to see how easy it is for things to go in one ear and out the other with you. Of course we went out, did I not just say that we _broke up a year ago_?” You carefully enunciate your last few years to ensure that they penetrate Strider’s thick skull.

“Hey man, I’m just surprised because earlier you mentioned liking Jade for a while, and hey, I liked Jade for awhile. Now you’re telling me you dated TZ and we had a kind of thing for like two months some time ago. It’s like we’ve got the same tastes in women or something. I wonder if I was bi if I would be into the same kinda guys as you.”

Wait. What the fuck. You gape at Dave like a goldfish that has fallen out of the fishbowl and desperately needs someone to return it to the water.

“She,” you pause, your mind barely keeping up with your mouth, “Terezi dated you?”

He has the decency to look sorry for running his mouth off about his dating life with the ex who ruined your belief in true love and awkwardly palms the back of his neck, “I mean, yeah? If it helps, it wasn’t that great and we both decided we were better off friends.”

“At least you ended things amicably,” you mutter and turn away.

A little glum now, the feelings exacerbated by the alcohol, you bury your head in your arms a little on top of the table. Dave considers you for a moment before pulling you up and turning you around. He settles a long arm around your shoulders and waves his other arm in a broad sweeping motion as he directs your attention to the crowd.

“C’mon, man. Don’t mope. Look at all the fish in the sea I bet are dying to jump on your hot Vantas ass. Pick someone, anyone. I’ll make them your next S.O. with my Strider charm.”

The moment feels unreal. You only met him this semester yet here you are at a gay bar with a completely straight Dave Strider, the ex of your ex, urging you to pick your next The One out of a crowd of strangers jumping out of sync with the synthetic beat pulsing through the club like an erratic heart. Unexpectedly, a genuine laugh bubbles up from within you and spills out. You find yourself giggling into Dave’s shoulder as he looks down at you helplessly, for once completely shocked into silence. In the back of your mind, you vaguely realize that he was definitely trying to cheer you up about Terezi and part of you wonders when Dave Strider began to feel you were the kind of person he preferred happy over sad.

“What’s so funny, Karkat.”

You giggle a little more before finally gaining the breath to answer.

“Vantas ass…” you laugh between each breath. “You can… just call me… Karkat Vantass.”

Dave blinks at you once or twice, only causing you to laugh more. Shaking his head slightly, Dave smiles soft and small and you stop laughing because it is definitely the first real smile you’ve seen on his face.

“You trolls really don’t hold your liquor well.”

You shake your head slightly, “Nah. Just me. Prolly something to do with my blood, but whatever.”

“Your blood…?”

“Like I said, whatever.”

An alert interrupts you both, blaring out the hated cadence of marimba that is also the sound of your alarm in the morning and Dave quickly slips his phone out of his pocket to silence the reminder he had set. He looks up at you for a moment before looking back down at his phone.

“I’m up in the DJ booth in ten minutes. Let me find Kanaya for you, she’s your like caretaker moirail person, right?”

You feel your face heat up at the mention of Kanaya being anything close to resembling a moirail for you.

“I uh. We’re not-” you stutter, “We’re not moirails. Just really close.”

“Friends with bennys?” Dave asks, not even looking up from his screen as he scrolls through his contacts. They’re all labelled dumbass things like, “Guy from Starbucks.” You know this because, when he asked you for your number for the project, you watched as he typed in “Shouty guy shook by Shakespeare.”

You shoot a glare at Dave in response to his mark and say, with nearly no venom in your voice, “You know absolute jackshit about the intricacies of troll romance and you should just do the entire troll world a favor by never opening your squawk gaper again and sparing everyone in your immediate vicinity from falling into a deep and incurable madness due to the level of ignorance you spew out on a regular basis about all things troll related.”

Your words roll off of him and all he says is, “Alright. Alright. You’re as bad as Rose, Jesus. You make it sound like I’m hailing the end of the actual fucking world when I imply that you and Kanaya are a kind of thing friendly diamonds wise. I get it, you aren’t all shackled up in the quadrant with her like an old married couple playing hopscotch with one square.”

Tapping a few buttons on his screen to call Kanaya, he winks at you as he holds his phone up to his ear, “But you like her that way, right?”

“I’m not here. I’m not here. I’m dead and I’m not here.”

He has a brief conversation with Kanaya and suddenly she is by your side and he is easing you into her arms, whispering into your ear, “Told you I’m a good wingman,” before pulling away to leave.

“Well, I’m off, Karkat. It’s been fun talking to you. I hope you like the sweet, sweet beats I’m about to lay down specifically for you to enjoy for your birthday. Take good care of him, Kanaya.”

“Wriggling day,” you correct him.

“Whatever,” he starts to go but then stops. “Hey, you owe me one for this, Karkat.”

You snort. “I’m not giving you shit, Strider.”

“Aw c’mon. They say some hookers make up to $50 bucks an hour for their company, Karcrab.”

“Oh my god. Don’t ever call me that again and I’ll buy you a coffee next class.”

“Deal.”

Kanaya frets over you as you both walk to the booth where she and Rose had been talking in and part of you does feel thankful to Dave for jumpstarting your moirail flirtations with Kanaya. You’ve been feeling pale for her for awhile and it seemed like you were both edging into the territory but you were worried your intentions weren’t returned. Maybe Kanaya was as bad about expressing her feelings for you as she was with Rose.

Rose is not present when you finally make it to the booth and you settle in beside Kanaya and lean heavily on her shoulder. Across the crowd, you see Rose whispering something to Dave before he climbs into the DJ booth. You don’t know what she says, but it causes Dave to stop abruptly and turn his head so Rose can get the full effect of a heavy eye roll he employs. She doesn’t appear even slightly perturbed, instead smirking before looking over at you and Kanaya. You frown a little, unsure if she is looking at you or her potential matesprit (and your potential moirail.)

You watch as Rose leaves and Dave turns back around to climb up into the DJ booth and wonder if his shoulders have always seemed so broad despite his thin frame or if you’re just imagining things now. He looks good in this atmosphere, splashes of magenta and deep blue lighting hitting him at just the right angles to emphasize the sharp shape of his face and the clean creases on his shirt. His glasses reflect back at you an array of colors that bounce up his neck from his collar and light up his face as well.

When Rose crosses the crowd and sits across from you and Kanaya, you don’t turn to acknowledge her at all and instead find yourself watching as Dave taps on the DJ on duty’s shoulder. The troll nods once before unplugging his headphones and pulling out of the booth. Dave busies himself around the small box, tucking stuff away and setting up other things. He slips on a pair of bright red headphones, obviously well used and well loved based off of how beat up and customized they are, before gently letting his fingers touch over two large discs. For a brief moment, you wonder if he’s any good.

Then the music changes and you wonder why you ever doubted Dave’s abilities whenever he rapped at you during your meetings for the project.

The entire atmosphere around you shifts as you recognize Dave’s low voice rapping out at a steady cadence an entire verse of Shakespeare lines he’s definitely taken from the one monologue by Hamlet that you’ve raved about a million times to him in class while he steadfastly ignored you. All the parts of you that had long wondered why Dave Strider, music major, was taking Intro to Shakespeare evaporates as he segways into a new and completely original verse playing with the themes he introduced with the Shakespeare lines. If you weren’t somewhere between buzzed and drunk, you think you would write down his words to analyze for your class. Instead, you remain fixated on the way Dave’s hair appears with the soft purple light dancing behind his head.

As you stare up at Dave Strider, music major, annoying partner from Intro to Shakespeare, boy with too long fingers, dip his head slightly in time with his own music as he plays his heart out, you feel as if the floor has given out from under you. Your stomach feels weightless in the way gravity feels so much more present when the rollercoaster has just taken the dive down and you are suddenly very aware of how very, _very_ aware you are of Dave Strider.

It dawns on you then that you, Karkat Vantas, boy against dating from now until forever, are incredibly fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry. Dave isn't straight. I mean, how can anyone be swathed in the magentas and blues of the bisexual flag without being at least a lil bi.
> 
> This is a oneshot kinda thing but I might continue it?? Idk, fam. We'll see.
> 
> Edit: Yeah, I'm continuing it prolly.


	2. Something I can't shake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Drugs & Candy by All Time Low. Y'all I'm so tireddddd. Third chapter is started tho :)

_You've got me out of my head_  
_I fill this space in your bed_  
_High on the beat of a breakdown_

You’re refining your analysis of the archetypes featured in literature and how their reception has changed throughout history when Dave swings into your dorm to magnanimously bless you with his presence. He unfolds the plastic chair you’ve got leaning on the side of your desk specifically for visitors and plops his skinny ass onto it before propping his feet up near your head. Without skipping a beat, you hold up one particularly succinct finger and make sure to channel all of your rage and annoyance into the single digit.

“Fuck off, Dave. I’m too busy for your inane shenanigans.”

He doesn’t budge his feet even after you slam your pencil on the table with a resounding crack, straighten up to your full height, and whip your head around and shoot him a burning glare in an attempt to reduce the useless stain on society into ashes.

For a moment, as your glare fades from your face, you simply take in the view of Dave with his bright red varsity jacket hanging off his frame and his scuffed up shoes resting inches from your paper as he leans back in his chair. His right arm is dangling towards the floor while his head is tilted towards the ceiling at an angle that gives you a peek at his eyes resting closed beneath his sunglasses.

He’s the picture of relaxation and it feels as if he slots easily into your room in a way that you never thought anybody could. Amidst your textbooks and romance novels scattered around the floor and the pile of laundry in the corner, Dave doesn’t look even slightly out of place.

You wonder if you’re just romanticizing how easily he’s slotted into your life and then decide to scratch dangerous thoughts like that permanently from your thinkpan.

“Don’t you have places to be? Mirrors to polish and selfies to rub your bone bulge to?” You shove his feet off your desk and he snaps out of his silent contemplation of the ceiling as you finish your point. “Things to study and classes to prepare for?”

“No, you dolt. Midterms were literally last week, why don’t you cut yourself some slack?”

In a moment of rare spontaneity that you feel must be calculated to throw you off as much as possible, he pulls his sunglasses off and slips them onto your face. Your face heats up at the faint brush of his fingers against your cheekbones. The glasses slip down the bridge of your nose a little as he tilts his head to take you in. The sight of his freckles scattered across his cheeks makes your stomach flip so you turn back to your paper to avoid looking at him.

You push his glasses up before launching into an appropriate rant expressing just how much you don’t want to hang out with Dave today because anything is better than the torture of being confronted by the vast array of emotions Dave can pull from your pump biscuit.

“I’m a busy person, Dave. I don’t have time to barge into other people’s rooms and distract them from their important tasks.” The tiniest hint of amusement is plain in Dave’s smallest of smiles and with his eyes uncovered, you get flustered by how focused they are on you. Like the champion you are though, you power through the skip in your heart to continue your thought.

“If you paid even the slightest amount of attention to anything other than yourself, you’d realize that I have an infinite amount of things to do that rank higher on my list of priorities than spending time with you. In fact, you are so low on my list of priorities, any time I choose to bestow my presence on you should be considered downright fucking charitable and qualify as tax-deductible. You should weep with gratitude to be allowed to bask in my company for even a moment.”

You pull the glasses from your face and snap them closed before shoving them into Dave’s hands. “Now go away because I’m not feeling particularly generous today.”

He doesn’t leave.

Instead, the asshole peeks over your shoulder at your paper.

“Dude, this is dated for months from now. Don’t even lie to me, you have nothing to do and will probably be reading some crappy tearjerker while curled around a bucket of ice cream in like two hours. You’ll come crawling to me with the floodgates about to spill to cry about some lonely rainbow blooded troll who can’t fill in any of the squares and I’ll just shrug and turn you away because you’ve rejected my invite to hang out and left me a lonely spinster with no marriage chances.”

“I will fucking murder you with a rusty spoon, Dave. Don’t push me; I will do it. I will scoop your eyeballs out and feed them to your favorite crow and wear your sunglasses as a trophy of war. What I choose to do or not do in my free time is completely up to me and you have no platform to judge me from considering you spend your free time bothering sorry, starving college students.”

As you continue threatening immense harm to him, you get up from your desk to usher Dave out of your room. He doesn’t resist.

“Fine, I can see when I’m unwanted. I’ll leave you to your smutty romances obviously marketed to tantalize budding teenagers. You probably need to study up on them anyways if you plan on getting a date anytime soon.”

For a moment, you want to drag him back into your room and teach him exactly what you are capable of offering to potential quadrantmates. Instead, you shut the door on his face and spend the next ten minutes screaming into a pillow because Dave is confusing and dumb and liking him (and hating him?) is like trying to wear a sweater with one too many sleeves. He doesn’t fit into anything, not your quadrants and definitely not your life.

Still, when you finish screaming and return to your desk, your room feels a little less like home and a little more like it’s missing something vital.

It’s 2 am when you wake up in a cold sweat. You spend five minutes just reminding yourself of where you are. It takes another ten minutes to summon the courage to throw the covers off of you and you feel shame and embarrassment burrow itself into the pit of your stomach and straight through to the tips of your clawed toes. Only weak wrigglers react this way to bad dreams.

Still, despite your mental berating, you can’t bear the idea of going back to sleep. You know that the fear curling beneath your shame will spill over into any dreams you have tonight. Instead of subjecting yourself to more psychological torture, your hand palms your cellphone off your desk where it’s been charging and slides to Trollian. Everybody is offline except for one person, his name glaring at you in the very color you just had nightmares about. You don’t know why you do it but you message him.

carcinoGeneticist  [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead  [TG]

CG: WHAT DEMONIC ENTITY IS POSSESSING YOU AT THIS UNGODLY HOUR OF FUCK OFF O’CLOCK TO BE AWAKE.  
CG: WHY IS IT THAT WHENEVER I OPEN THIS APPLICATION LATE INTO THE EARLY MORNING OF A DARK NEW DAY, YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON AVAILABLE TO TALK TO. IT’S LIKE THE UNIVERSE DECIDED I’M ALREADY HAVING A SHIT DAY AND, TO MAKE MY LIFE AS TRAGIC AS POSSIBLE, IT MAKES ME SO DESPERATE FOR COMPANY, I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO CONTACT THE PRETENTIOUS HIPSTER WHO WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE GOOD LITERATURE EVEN IF IT STRUTTED DOWN THE RUNWAY WITH ALL THE CONFIDENCE OF A BIRD OF PARADISE AND VOGUED ITS BRAINS OUT JUST TO EMPHASIZE HOW GOOD IT IS.  
TG: holy fuck  
TG: youre awake  
TG: also im not saying i told you so but i totally told you youd come crawling to me for comfort after your pathetic protagonist failed to find his happy ending  
TG: he spent all that time ignoring his best friend in favor of wandering around like a star-crossed lover when true happiness was found at his best bros side all along  
TG: cmon karkat you shouldve let me woo you  
TG: i could just fucking sweep you off your feet with the bromance of a century  
TG: in a uh  
TG: platonic non romantic no homo way of course  
TG: way better than getting your heart broken by fictional characters  
CG: AS YOUR KIND AND BENEVOLENT FRIEND, I WILL DISREGARD THE EXTREMELY PALE SOLICITATIONS EMBEDDED WITHIN YOUR UNNECESSARILY LONG RAMBLE ABOUT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER WHOSE ARC VERY CLOSELY RESEMBLES THE CLICHE STORYLINE OF MANY MOIRAILLEGIANCES WITHIN THE CHEAP NOVELS LINING THE BOTTOM SHELF OF TRASHY ROMANCES AT TROLL BARNES AND NOBLE.  
CG: SERIOUSLY, DAVE, EVEN I WOULDN’T TOUCH THAT HOOFBEAST MANURE. THAT CLICHE IS SO OVERPLAYED, IT IS THE SONG THAT SIGNALS THE END OF THE NIGHT AT AN OVERLY RAMBUNCTIOUS CLUB.  
CG: YOU BETTER BE PRESSING YOUR CHEEK INTO THE PAVEMENT OUT OF GRATITUDE THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME BECAUSE I KNOW YOU WELL ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR INFERIOR HUMAN THINKPAN COULDN’T COMPREHEND THE ROMANTIC OVERTONES YOU COAT EVERY WORD WITH AND I AM WILLING TO OVERLOOK HOW OVERTLY HUMAN GAY YOU ARE WITH EVERYBODY YOU MEET.  
CG: IF YOU WERE A TROLL, YOUR DESPERATION TO FILL YOUR QUADRANTS WOULD BE ON THE SAME LEVEL AS ERIDAN.  
TG: aw dont compare me with fishlord snootyface  
TG: hes so many levels of uncool  
TG: its like my skin just crawls when he speaks as my coolness levels have to jump into overdrive to compensate for the aura he brings to a room  
TG: also im not like  
TG: gay  
TG: do you even know what that means  
TG: you cant be gay to everybody you meet like  
TG: while saying im gay for girls can be hilarious its also  
TG: really inaccurate because i cant be gay for girls im just straight like  
TG: boys are cool i guess i mean id date you if you were a girl yknow but me and gay are just not on the same wavelength  
TG: like  
CG: WHAT.  
TG: if gay and i were lines wed be running parallel and its cool that gay is doing its thing but im fine over here just being straight doing straight things running straight  
TG: would gay be a not straight line  
TG: that wouldnt make sense because then wed eventually cross paths and im just absolutely parallel to that bent up gay line  
TG: maybe id bend parallel to it?  
TG: except im straight  
TG: actually im really regretting where this conversation has gone can you just be a real bro and erase all of this from your mind and laptop  
TG: topic change why are you messaging me at fuck off o’clock  
CG: I DON’T REMEMBER ANYMORE. CONGRATULATIONS. YOUR INANE BULLSHIT HAS MANAGED TO MELT MY THINKPAN TO THE POINT WHERE ANY RECOLLECTION ON WHY I MESSAGED YOU HAS JUST BEEN LOST IN EVAPORATING PAN FLUID.  
TG: hey dont be coy here  
TG: i know youre not just messaging me for my poorly executed geometry lessons  
TG: lie your head down on that armrest and let me pull up my rose impression all like  
TG: Yes, Karkat. I’ve discovered the root of your issue.  
TG: Gay.  
TG: You are so fascinated by dicks that you just have to satisfy it by contacting your best bro in the middle of the night.  
TG: Admit it, Karkat.  
TG: You’re infatuated with the concept of being human gay. Honestly, I don’t blame you what with how wonderful it is to spend all of the time shoving my tongue down Kanaya’s throat.  
TG: Except I’m too demure to admit I do that and instead just wiggle my eyebrows at Dave suggestively to make him uncomfortable with my romantic exploits with an alien who I may or may not be lesbian dating.  
TG: Even though we are both aware that I am too much of a coward to just up and ask out the hot girl I’ve been in lesbian with for the last forever.  
CG: I THINK YOU NEED TO WORK ON YOUR ROSE IMPRESSION MORE.  
TG: shut up its perfectly accurate  
TG: wait  
TG: shut up its perfectly accurate  
CG: IT’S ABOUT AS ACCURATE AS MY CLAIMS TO BEING ANYTHING CLOSE TO A PROPER TROLL ON THE HEMOSPECTRUM.  
CG: ALSO KAN INSISTS THEY ARE *NOT* A THING.  
CG: I’D CALL BULL BUT ROSE’S COMPLICATED MACHINATIONS ARE UNINTELLIGIBLE SOMETIMES AND I COULDN’T HOPE TO UNRAVEL THE TWISTED MATING RITUAL SHE’S SUBJECTING KANAYA TO.  
CG: I HAVE TO SHOW HER SOME RESPECT THOUGH.  
CG: WHATEVER SHE’S DOING, IT’S WORKING.  
TG: hey no  
TG: rose doesnt actually know what shes doing dont paint her as this crazy skilled flirt whos just ushering herself into kanayas good graces  
TG: this long and sorry excuse for flirting is just rose being gay and not knowing how to flirt properly or really interact with kanaya like a real person would  
TG: shes all hand wringing while plaintively asking me what kanaya meant when she invited her to study with her at the library  
TG: she wants to kiss you rose  
TG: just date her already rose  
TG: why are you such a useless lesbian rose  
TG: she never has a response to that last one  
CG: HONESTLY THOUGH?  
CG: WHEN WILL THEY FINISH THIS AGONIZING PINING. IT’S CHARMING IN LITERATURE BUT INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING WHEN YOU’RE STUCK WATCHING IT IN REAL LIFE.  
TG: yeah it is kind of annoying  
TG: rose is all playing hard to get when really everyone but kanaya knows rose is dying to slap a romantic title on kanaya and make the both of them an item  
TG: like theyd be so happy together why cant they just get it over with  
TG: thank god im not that annoying  
TG: anyways  
TG: back to the main topic  
TG: fuck what was the original topic  
TG: it completely slipped my mind  
TG: slinked away like a cartoon robber in the middle of the night  
TG: three am is too late to have any sort of continuous conversation  
TG: or  
TG: too early?  
TG: wait why did you message me  
TG: do you need help or something  
CG: UH.  
TG: uh  
CG:  
TG: dude  
CG:  
TG: karkat you ok over there  
CG: OK. I KNOW THIS IS A STUPID WRIGGLER THING AND I SHOULD JUST BE ABLE TO GET OVER IT BUT I UH  
CG: FUCK, THIS IS REALLY PATHETIC.  
CG: I HAD A BAD NIGHTMARE AND I REFUSE TO GO BACK TO SLEEP.  
CG: BUT I CAN’T STAND BEING ALONE IN MY ROOM RIGHT NOW JUST GOING OVER THE SAME STUPID THING IN MY HEAD LIKE A BROKEN RECORD SKIPPING BACK TO THE SCRATCHED UP PART OF THE SHITTY SONG I’M TRYING TO GET THROUGH SO I MESSAGED YOU BECAUSE YOU WERE THE ONLY PERSON AWAKE AT THIS HOUR.  
CG: SORRY.  
CG: IT’S DUMB.  
TG: shit man no need to apologize  
TG: i get nightmares all the time its like  
TG: half the reason im up this late so often  
TG: i dont think youre pathetic  
TG: or dumb  
CG: OK.  
TG: you should really try to sleep if you can though  
TG: ive seen your massive eyebags  
TG: its like your luggage has luggage when you travel and its all stuffed under your eyes  
CG: THERE’S NO WAY I’M GOING TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP NOW.  
CG: MY ROOM JUST FEELS UNSAFE AND IT JUST REFLECTS HOW IDIOTIC I REALLY AM BENEATH ALL MY BLUSTER ABOUT BEING UNAFRAID OF ANYONE OR ANYTHING BUT I’VE ALWAYS BEEN KIND OF TERRIFIED OF THE IDEA OF THE CULLING DRONES KNOCKING DOWN MY ROOF WHILE I’M ASLEEP.  
CG: I KNOW THEY WON’T BECAUSE THERE AREN’T ANY ON EARTH AND I’M SAFE NOW OR WHATEVER BUT  
CG: IT’S JUST  
CG: HARD TO SHAKE OFF YEARS OF COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED PARANOIA.  
TG: yeah i get that  
CG: WHAT.  
TG: nothing  
TG: do you uh  
TG: would it be better if you came over to my room and just chilled with me  
TG: i mean  
TG: fuck  
TG: will company help?  
CG: I DON’T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE YOU.  
TG: you wont  
TG: cross my heart and hope to die  
TG: never an inconvenience to have you around karkat  
TG: even if you dont even have an inside voice volume  
TG: youre basically a car radio thats been jacked up and cant ever go down no matter how much we want to turn off the weird al song blasting through the speakers  
TG: i dont mind it much though  
TG: its a  
TG: youre a pretty ok song to listen to  
TG: im not sleeping anytime soon over here anyways because im busy working on some beats for my next gig so you can just crash on my bed  
CG: I  
CG: OK.  
TG: cool  
CG: COOL.  
CG:  
TG:  
CG: THANKS, DAVE.  
TG: yeah no problem  
CG: I’LL HEAD OVER NOW, I GUESS.  
TG: see you in a few  


carcinoGeneticist  [CG] ceased trolling turntechGodhead  [TG]

When you arrive outside of Dave’s door, you briefly consider just turning around and fucking off so he doesn’t have to deal with the heaping amount of bullshit you’re piling onto his plate with your dumbassery. Your phone chimes before you actually leave though.

TG: dude how long does it take to walk to my room  
CG: CAN YOU SHUT YOUR IMPATIENT SQUAWKBLASTER AND JUST OPEN THE DOOR. I WAS ABOUT TO KNOCK BEFORE YOU RUDELY INTERRUPTED ME.  
TG: oh

The door swings open and you internally roll your eyes at the sight of Dave wearing his sunglasses in the middle of the night before shuffling into his room.

“Karkat,” Dave says, “What the fuck is that?”

Your blood rushes to your face as you clutch your crab closer and bristle at his tone of voice. Your voice is possibly a lot louder than it should be when you respond.

“It’s my crab plush, okay?”

“Jegus, you’re too adorable sometimes. Just go the fuck to sleep.” He nods over to the corner of his room. “Bed’s over there.”

As you awkwardly sit on the edge of his bed and place your crab next to you, he turns off the light and sits at his desk running perpendicular to his bed and dividing the space beside his bed in two. His hair is a mess compared to how it’s normally immaculately stylized and sticks up in tufts around his bright red headphones. The light from his screen casts deep shadows on his face and highlights his eyelashes and hair in a bright blue as he works. You feel uncomfortable with how much you notice the structure of his cheekbones and avert your gaze to take in his room.

Unlike you, Dave lives in an absolute pigsty. Wires sprawl across the floor in a tangle you would never be brave enough to try and straighten out while stacks of homework and books just lie shoved up against the wall. Behind Dave, underneath the window he’s covered with blinds, is a shelf with piles of music equipment stacked on it. A keyboard is buried beneath the mess of headphones and other paraphernalia you couldn’t name even if your life depended on it. A shitty sword and a much more expensive guitar lean against the side of the shelf.

The room is entirely Dave’s. You wonder how you fit into it compared to how he fits into your room. How would you both fit into a room that’s a balance of both of you?

“Why do you have a shitty anime sword?” you ask aloud.

“Why do you have an admittedly cute crab toy?” he retorts. You huff slightly before pulling it up from beside you and perching it on your lap to stare down at its angry black eyes. It looks like it’s ready to fight someone.

“It reminds me of home,” you say quietly.

“Alternia? I thought you hated that place.” In your peripheral vision, you can see Dave looking up from his computer at you, his chin tilted almost imperceptibly in your direction.

“Not,” you begin, struggling to find the right words to talk about your lusus, “Not all of it.”

He stares at you for a long moment before returning his attention to his music, head bobbing slightly as he clicks play on what he’s figured out so far for his song. You feel compelled to stare at how he silently mouths along with the lyrics. He pauses his song before glancing sideways at you.

“I have a sword for the same reason. Kind of.”

“What?”

He looks away before replying. “Lots of reminders of home.”

It sounds like there’s a lot more lying beneath that statement and part of you wants to unpack it all and piece it back together to see what makes Dave, well, Dave. But it’s three in the morning and you’re tired and yawning and already lying down and pulling the sheets up to your chin and, as you watch the slight crease form between Dave’s brows, the only sign that he is deeply focused on his art, you feel incredibly safe and, for once, incredibly at home.

You fall asleep before you can figure out what the implications of that must mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate pesterlogs. I really do. Not to be overdramatic but formatting this made me feel like shoveling hot coals and scalding liquid metal down my throat.


	3. Don't need no place to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow long time no see... I wrote this all in one day and it's midnight now and I've been meaning to write a ficlet to this song so here you go. Song title from Dance to This by Troye Sivan. Comments and kudos are treasured <3

_We can just dance to this_

_Don't take much to start me_

_We can just dance to this_

 

It’s not love. You lie awake in Dave’s bed with his scent thick in your nose and you tell yourself it isn’t love. You feel a bundle of affection and frustration coil in your chest when Dave spits paper wads at you in the library and you tell yourself it isn’t love. You lose your breath, lose your bearings on the entire world, when you catch sight of him, and you tell yourself it isn’t love.

Even now, as Dave sweeps into your room all sharp elbows and long legs, you remind yourself that it isn’t love. He dramatically flails forward like an uncoordinated giraffe who has been shoved into an ice rink and lands with a quiet _oomph_ beside you on the bed. You’re careful not to let his limbs accidentally entangle with yours, careful not to convince yourself that this is a scene out of romcom that will end with the two of you telling jokes late into the night with your hands only a hair’s breadth apart (as if this exact scene hasn’t already happened before though.)

You don’t let yourself think of Dave that way because you’re not in love with him. However, you do let your eyes drag up the length of his neck and follow the sharp cut of his jaw. You might not be in love, but you are definitely… infatuated. In the fading evening light, Dave looks as good as he does in any other lighting. That is to say, he still looks too pretty for you to handle.

Instead of turning so that you can pin Dave to your bed (because it really would be so easy) you say to him, “As far as I can recall, never, not ever-”

“Pretty sure never is short for not ever, dude.”

“-not once in the entirety of my short, fruitless life have I extended an invitation to you allowing you to cross the threshold between the hallway and this sanctuary I call my own dorm room.”

A smile colors his voice even if he isn’t completely unleashing his blindingly gorgeous grin (talk about unfair) when he responds, “C’mon, Karkat. Don’t act like you and I weren’t locked in for a good hangout session today. You and I have been pencilled in for bro times on this poor, lonely Friday ever since all of our friends were invited to what’s-her-face’s wedding and we were left alone in the cold of winter just because I messed with her _one time_...”

God, how do you stop a train?

He keeps rambling on about how you’ve somehow missed out on the single, most romantic trope to enter and then subsequently exit your life. It’s probably for the best. Spending the weekend at a wedding with Dave surely would have been too much.

“...Although our traitorous friends and my conniving sister have decided we aren’t worth their time, we have tonight, Karkat. You and I will have a hell of a time together and we’ll put to shame every wacky story Rose and Kanaya bring back about their romantic evening attending my second-cousin’s awful wedding.”

When he finally stops talking, you turn your head and find yourself gazing directly at the wide frames of his glasses. The faintest shadow of a smirk stains his face and his breath smells like Cool Ranch Doritos. You mentally hate yourself for being able to pick out the exact flavor he’s been eating and can’t find the energy to wonder what your own breath must smell like to him because, if you’re stuck with smelling nasty Dorito breath, Dave can handle whatever you’re sending his way.

“I’ll speak plainly to save us both time,” you say to him. “I hate you and I never asked for your presence in my home so, as a vampire, you are obligated to leave before being reduced to a pile of ash that will hopelessly stain my blankets.”

“Cold, Karkat. Your cruel words are barbs that pierce my frail heart, somehow finding the chink in my impenetrable armor.”

“If it’s fucking impenetrable then nothing should pierce it, dumbass.”

“I don’t understand anything about anything, Karkat. That’s why I need you in my life.”

He says it like he’s serious and it makes your pulse skyrocket. Your face is probably warming up right now.

“I know everything, Dave, but you have nothing to offer in this relationship except your terrible excuse for company. Having you around is like coming home after visiting the beach and discovering sand still wedged up your goddamn asscrack. You are asscrack sand, Dave. Unavoidable and unwanted. Meanwhile, I am the all-knowing god that guides you and you can’t even appreciate my vast knowledge. How dare you ever question or disrespect me after everything I’ve taught you. I am a fountain of information and you are but a parched idiot who has survived on nothing but apple juice and Doritos for too long. You could ask me questions but I’m sure you’re too stupid to even know what needs to be asked.”

His smile grows a fraction wider and his slim eyebrow peaks up from above the rim of his sunglasses as he raises one at you. The side of his glasses must be pressing uncomfortably into his cheek but he hasn’t budged at all just to maintain his idiotic aesthetic. You almost roll your gander bulbs at the thought.

“O God of Wisdom, what should I ask you?” He breathes out with mock reverence. You feel a shiver run down your spine when you realize your conversation has fallen into a series of quiet murmurs. The intimacy of the setting hits you as you realize Dave’s inferior human eyes can probably only see your vague outline in your dark room now that the Sun has set outside.

 _Ask me to kiss you_ , thrums through every molecule in your body. _Ask me if I love you._ You don’t know the answer but you think Dave might have it.

 _Ask me anything and I’ll somehow find the answer for you_.

Instead, you rasp out, “Ask me why I compared you to a vampire.”

In the dark, Dave probably can’t see you very well. He can’t pick out your blood splotching in your face or how the two of you are so close you could tilt your head and scoot forward an inch to fit your lips together. You can see everything though from the startled confusion that darts across his face to the way something like amused excitement replaces it as he leans forward to say the bizarre question you gave him.

“Why did you compare me to a vampire?”

Triumph is yours. Of sorts.

“Because you suck.”

As quickly as you claim victory, Dave snatches it away by breaking out into an actual laugh. The bed shakes with his laughter and you can’t help but roll away from him because right now you need distance more than anything. You flop over onto your back and cover your warm face with your arm. This is getting to be too much.

“I hate you,” you murmur.

His laughter dies down and you feel his weight on the bed lift as he gets off of it.

“Hey, don’t be like that. We’re having a good time together! It’s Friday and our best friends are going to a wedding, but we’re having a better time.”

Your voice is muffled beneath the weight of your sweater but you still manage to bite out, “Saying we’re having a good time doesn’t mean we’re having a good time, Dave.”

“Alright, alright,” there’s still laughter in his voice and it makes something flip in the pit of your stomach. “Let’s make it a good time. We’re going to go and find Vriska’s rumored stash of chocolate and we’re going to eat it all and leave her a mean note.”

As he speaks, he pulls you off the bed until you’re standing in front of him. His fingers remain loosely looped around your wrists between the two of you.

“Dave, if you want chocolate, I have some.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t want chocolate, Karkat. I want stolen chocolate.”

With your pump biscuit thundering, you know that you can’t say no to him so you agree.

 

They’re surprisingly easy to find, only a quick text to Terezi away. You find the box tucked away behind dishes on a shelf in the dining hall closest to Vriska’s dorms. As promised, it’s filled to the brim with chocolate that you and Dave happily dive into while sitting cross-legged facing each other on top of one of the tables. Dave’s sunglasses rest on the table between you, taken off in light of the revelation that the campus is too dark at night for Dave to see jack.

“I have to admit,” you say as you shove another chocolate into your mouth, “this was one of your better ideas, Dave.”

“All of my ideas are good, Karkat.”

When the box is empty of all chocolate, you both scoot so that you’re sitting side by side with your legs dangling off the edge of the table. Dave pulls out a pair of earbuds and offers you one. It’s like every other night you spend with him. Quiet. Easy. Natural.

The music he plays isn’t his own. You’d comment, but you know Dave would make some snarky remark about how musicians aren’t narcissistic assholes and they sometimes have to listen to other music to grow as artists. Instead of interrupting the calm of this silver bubble of a moment, you lean backwards onto the palms of your hands and let your eyes flutter closed as the music washes over you and Dave’s warmth seeps through your sweatpants.

In the silence of this dining hall, you could convince yourself the world has ended. The tall windows reaching upwards to the ceiling reveal an empty inky darkness. This close to the city, the stars are nonexistent. This late at night, the campus is void of students haunting the grounds.

You and Dave are the last people on Earth. The sensation makes you want to do something reckless. Say something like _I think I’m in love with you_ . Or _Are you sure you’re straight because I’m really really in love with you_. Except Dave is straight and you aren’t in love with him. To save yourself from the embarrassment, you don’t speak. You just enjoy his company and hope to wrap this moment in glass and store it in your mind to replay over and over while you lie awake in his bed after a particularly bad nightmare.

Dave breaks the silence because he’s a jackass who can never handle any version of silence, not even one facilitated by music.

“I wonder what Rose and Kanaya are doing.”

You shrug, “They’ve probably just arrived at their hotel room and are planning out dance moves to show off to everyone at the wedding that they are a vastly superior couple to the bride and groom.”

“We could be better dancers than them,” Dave says and you can’t help but snort at how seriously he says it, as if you and him are always meant to counter Kanaya and Rose. The parallels between yours and Kanaya’s blooming moirallegiance and Dave and Rose’s pale-leaning sibling relationship are where all of the parallels end.

Kanaya and Rose are in love. You and Dave… aren’t.

“I’ve got two left feet and you’re all spindly twigs for limbs, Dave. Meanwhile, Rose and Kanaya are the epitome of grace. If we even think to challenge their aesthetic, Rose’s third eye will open wide and they will both then decimate us on the dancefloor.”

Dave’s voice sounds more determined when he repeats, “ _We will be better dancers than them_.”

“Dave, what the fuck are you going on about now. Is your skull too thick for any information to filter through? Is that the problem here?”

He plucks the earbud from your ear and pulls the cord out of his phone. A few clicks later, the soft music you’d been listening to fills the room and, even though the place is so so empty and the ceiling stretches impossibly high, the music is loud and clear to you. When Dave stands and holds out a hand, his invitation is loud and clear too. He’s a perfect silhouette in front of the windows. The clouds have shifted so that the moonlight is falling down around you in long strips.

“I can’t dance, Dave.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“You’re a terrible teacher though.”

“You can teach me how to teach.”

“I’m a terrible teacher.”

With a huff of a laugh, Dave latches onto your arm and drags you forward. His fingers are rough and calloused against your hand. You find you never want to let go. “Let’s be terrible together.”

Dave tries to lead but you also want to lead so, for a moment, you both wrestle over control, your hands grasped between the two of you. Finally, you roll your eyes and let go of his hands to drape your arms around his neck. He seems taken aback, startled by your touch at his neck. You’re determined to not fuck this up though so you steadfastly hold your tongue while Dave considers you. He carefully places his hands at your hips and the two of you fall into something like a sway or a waltz. It resembles dancing if you’re squinting.

The moon lights up Dave in short intervals as you turn around the room aimlessly, passing through the shadow of window after window. He really doesn’t know how to lead or dance or teach.

“We’re terrible at this,” you say. The music fades out as you step out of Dave’s phone’s range. He starts pulling you both back towards it.

“Yeah, but we’re so terrible at this that we’re in sync so our terrible levels make us better at this than Rose and Kanaya.”

“That’s not how it works,” you breathe.

You both glide to a standstill. Neither of you drop your arms.

“Alright,” Dave says and then you’re both quiet.

Your pump biscuit is in your ears. Dave said _Alright_ like he was answering some question, accepting some simple truth. He says it like it’s easy and you know that, with Dave, everything will always feel this way: easy as _Alright_ and complicated as the feelings they pull up within you.

You don’t know where to look. Over his shoulder? Up at his face? The lighting is probably good enough for him to pick out your concentration, the furrow in your brow he makes so much fun of and your own dark eyes searching his face for- for- for something.

 _Ask me to kiss you_ , flits through your mind. _Ask me if I love you_.

The music dies down and now you’re just two bros standing in an empty dining hall posed to dance like figurines on a music box except, instead of a ball gown and suit, you’re both wearing sweatpants and t-shirts.

“This could’ve been us at your cousin’s wedding, but you had to go and fuck things up with her,” you say. “I should be asleep right now.”

Somewhere along the line, you decided to drop your voice and Dave took that to require leaning forward to hear you better. You count down the millimeters remaining between you two as if that’ll make any difference. No matter how close he gets, Dave will always remain out of reach. Fuck. You’re not supposed to fall for straight boys. It’s a fucking rule for a reason.

“Yeah, but you’re here,” Dave hums. When he speaks, you can feel the way his throat vibrates beneath your clammy fingers and the vibrations travel down your arm and straight to your chest. He makes it so easy to break your rules.

“I wish I wasn’t,” you grumble and he smiles at you soft and slow. In the moonlight, his eyes look like a dull red instead of their usual shock of color. Voice low, you whisper, more for yourself than to him, “Why are you like this?”

“What do you mean?”

You don’t know what you mean.

You answer him anyway.

“You’re an idiot, Dave.”

His voice drops and you count down a few more millimeters. At this point, you’re holding your breath, scared to blow him away or fall apart in the process.

“Am I?” he whispers.

“Yes, definitely. Sometimes your stupidity actually sends out signals that scramble my thinkpan and makes being in the same room as you excruciating. I count every millimeter between us and look forward to the moment I can add more.”

_Liar._

Closer and closer. You can make out every one of his lashes framing his half-lidded eyes. Your pump biscuit is about to burst. You are about to explode. Spontaneous combustion has never been so appealing or so familiar to you.

“You hang out with me anyways,” he murmurs. His breath is warm against your face.

“Yeah,” you mumble back, “I like you anyways.”

8 millimeters. 7 millimeters. 6 millimeters. You count them in your head. Dave’s hands twitch at your sides.

“I like you too.”

Your eyes fall shut as Dave fits his lips to yours and kisses you like he’s been waiting a thousand years to kiss you.

He flies away abruptly like a gunshot has split the silence. His eyes are wide and his hands shoot outwards to hover an inch or two above your waist.

“I- uh-” Dave stutters, “What the fuck.”

He stumbles back, out of your grip, like he’s been stung or maybe the gunshot got him and he’s going to fall backwards and bleed out at your feet. Something in you is hurting. Your blood pusher feels like it’s folded in half and your stomach is tangling itself with your intestines. If Dave weren’t standing right in front of you, you think you’d collapse where you’re at because your legs are suddenly jelly.

 _Ask me to kiss you again_ , fills up your mind. _Ask me if I fucking love you_.

Your voice is distant in your ears, “Shit.”

Just like that, the train is deployed. “Fuck. Shit. What the fuck. I’m sorry, Karkat. I didn’t- I’m- I’m not gay. What the fuck. I shouldn’t- I’m not trying to drag you into anything or something. Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know what that was. Maybe I’ve just been watching too many troll rom coms with you. A guy gets jonesing for a kiss and he can mack on his best friend in those things...”

 _Straight boys don’t kiss their best friends who are also boys_ , crosses your mind as Dave continues rambling. You feel frozen. Shell-shocked and trapped in this moment.

“...Rose and I have been working through this shit but I didn’t want to drag you into it and, fuck, Karkat,” his hands fall on your shoulders, “you’re my best friend, Karkat. Please tell me we’re alright. Holy shit, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The sound of your name and Dave’s desperate pleading tone revealing all of his insecurities and fucked up anxieties jerks you back up from the seventh ring of hell and back into your body.

“Alright,” you say and it is easy and impossible and everything that your relationship with Dave is to you. “We’re alright, Dave.”

Without his sunglasses, you can read Dave like a book and his face becomes awash in relief. You force something resembling a reassuring smile to your face.

“It’s alright, Dave. Really. I get it. Your human sexuality bullshit is tough to wade through like my quadrant vacillation bullshit.”

Things were easier for you here on Earth. You’ve connected with panquadrant trolls on the Internet. You’ve spent a lot of time immersed in human media where things like monogamy aren’t just the norm, they seem to be the requirement just like so many other things. You had and then lost Terezi and then you had to look in the mirror and figure out how she slipped through your fingers so easily. Dave hasn’t had the benefit of growing up troll and then moving to Earth. All he’s ever known is monogamy between a man and a woman. Trolls who are also boys don’t fit into that equation.

You rest the pads of your fingertips gently on the side of his face. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move an inch. Instead, he holds his breath like he doesn’t know what he wants out of this. He doesn’t know what he wants from you.

“It’s alright,” you repeat. “Let’s go back to our dorms. I’m tired.”

 

The entire way back, Dave is twitchy, jumping at shadows and walking on your heels as if seeing the back of your head is the only thing anchoring him. You’ve never asked about the person who haunts him in the form of a sword that remains by his bed, but you’ve pieced together enough. Once you arrive at his door and he slots his key in and swings it open to reveal his dark room, you hesitate before turning to go.

Your feet don’t budge as you look towards Dave. He isn’t turned to you. Instead, he is staring into the shadows in his room. His eyes search the corners as if he’ll find something glinting there, waiting for him to make the wrong move. Ever so slightly, his jaw is clenched tighter than usual and there is a downward tilt to his mouth that makes you want to reach out to him.

You turn to leave and long thin fingers wrap around your wrist for the third time this night. When you turn to face him, Dave’s eyes are wholly focused on you. Straight your ass.

“It helps your nightmares when I’m around, right?” he asks. The question is naked and vulnerable and carries so much more meaning than either of you are willing to admit.

“Yeah,” you respond. You shake your hand free and walk past Dave into his room. You’ve spent more nights here than you can count. At some point, you stopped coming solely when you had nightmares and started coming because you actually wanted to be around Dave because his scent made you calmer and his presence made you happier. There’s never a need for sopor when Dave is around. (This is where the lines between your quadrants blur. This pale fledgeling of a sentiment isn’t one you should be nursing for someone you’ve been begging to kiss you for weeks.)

Without an invitation, you scoot onto Dave’s bed and drag his blanket up to your chin. You turn so that you’re on your side facing away from him and looking towards the wall.

“I’m going to sleep now, Dave,” you declare.

You don’t fall asleep. Instead, you hold your breath as Dave hovers in his own room like he doesn’t belong. After several excruciating seconds, he slips beneath the covers and speaks softly, trusting you to hear him.

“I’m not gay,” he says. “But I... I might not be straight either… Maybe. I've never felt this way before.”

_Felt what way?_

You roll onto your other side to face him. He’s on his back, eyes wide open. Sleep isn’t claiming him anytime soon.

“That’s alright,” you say. “I’m here for you no matter what you are.”

His red eyes meet yours as he turns onto his side to face you. “Thanks.”

You fall asleep with your head tucked beneath his chin and your arms wrapped around his midsection. You dream of nothing and you know that, in the morning, when you tell yourself this isn’t love, you will be lying.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think they'd kiss when I started writing this tbh but I regret absolutely nothing.


End file.
